


chasing twisters

by elliptical



Series: to own a galaxy [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Diary/Journal, Memories, Multi, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 13:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5458241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliptical/pseuds/elliptical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Helmsman reminisces about old loves with the help of an ancient journal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	chasing twisters

**Author's Note:**

> this is actually... way shorter than it could be. i cut myself off so it wouldn't become a Monstrosity.  
> anyway, this is what psii's up to during chapter two of 'various storms and saints'.
> 
> also check out this beautiful fanart by archivalrust:  
> http://archivalrust.tumblr.com/post/135398961315
> 
> _so kiss me now, this whiskey on my breath_   
>  _feel the lives that i have taken_   
>  _what little soul that i have left_   
>  _and oh my god, i'll take you to the grave_   
>  _the only love i've ever known_   
>  _the only soul i ever saved_   
>  _-chasing twisters, delta rae_

You curl up on the reclining platform in your block, Di's writings tucked close to your chest, debating on whether or not you can stand to open them. You've spent hours upon hours in the protected colony library reading up on all the history of the cult, the history of your family's legacy, filling in knowledge gaps and correcting misinformation. Di didn't die when Sign did. Neither did Rosa. You didn't even know until long after both of them were gone anyway, and you ache so badly, wondering if you could have negotiated with the Empress to bring them on the ship with you.

(Di would have hated you for taking her from the woods when the woods were her only available comfort, bur Rosa - from what you've read, Rosa's After was just as miserable as yours. Maybe you could have kept her close, maybe the Empress would have given you that, maybe you could have convinced her to keep Rosa alive like you and you wouldn't be so fucking alone now -)

But that's part of why you're afraid to open the writings. You can't... you can't trust most of your memories. All of his teachings are here, words penned in stark red in contrast to Di's olive. There are scatterings of yellow and jade through the pages where Di wrote your and Rosa's words, or you hijacked her journal yourself. You flipped through the pages without reading, just to stare at her handwriting, at the loops and curls of the Old Alternian script. Just the sight of that was enough to make you want to lay down and never get up again.

You remember she was always writing. There's no reason for those memories to be false, at least. She kept her journals tucked under her arm every time you traveled. She chewed on the ends of pens and tucked pencils behind her ears. She drained the blood of the beasts she killed into her inkwells to make sure none went to waste. She gave you terrible parody smut of characters in a movie you liked to celebrate your wiggling day.

...You seriously hope that smut hasn't survived thousands of sweeps.

The thought makes you smile a little, enough that you decide to brave the journal. You don't have to read everything now. You don't even have to touch the war or her post-Sufferer writings or illustrations. You can just read her journal entries. Most of these you... you think you read anyway, Before. You never had a great grasp on privacy.

You open the book.

\---

the psion is staying with us, at least for the next little while. if he's not up for staying long term then we'll find a place for him like we did with the other slaves. he says he doesn't have a name but he goes by psii, like psionic but with double iis. he's very specific and also anal about the double iis. sign said he's earned the right to be anal about it because his name is the only thing that's ever belonged to him, which was a great way to put a damper on what was a funny situation. thanks love!!

he's nice though. psii, i mean. sign's nice too obviously but that's a given. i just think psii might be trying a little too hard. i don't know much about him other than that he's exceptionally helpful and quiet. he insisted on helping rosa with the dishes, he's been carrying more of the supplies than any of us, helping cook dinner and then barely eating anything, keeping to himself. and believe me, it is nice to have the help! i am a huge fan of not having to haul massive packs everywhere. it's just he kind of reminds me of me when i first joined sign and rosa? how everything was overwhelming and i didn't know how interaction worked and they were potential enemies regardless of being kind.

i'm going to get him a blanket.

\---

You should feel bad for immediately skipping to where you entered the story. There's a mountain of information before that, from when she and Rosa and Sign were all traveling together, when his biggest acts of rebellion were preaching in the streets and stopping muggings. But hey. You're trying to line up your sense of identity here.

When you first left your master, you were still operating under a slave's dissociative fugue. Sign's words were like waking up, like surfacing from underneath an iced-over lake. And his hands, when he gently touched your cheek after the sermon and asked about your bruises, his hands were like fireside warmth drying off your skin. 

You would have done anything for him. 

But after the first daring act of rebellion, after you threw down your chains and tore off your slave tag and shattered your collar, after you collapsed your master's hive and shielded yourself inside the rubble and burst out in a shower of red and blue - after that you fell back into yourself. Sign and Di and Rosa were all kinder than they had any right to be, but Rosa was intimidating and Di was smart and Sign was too much passion all at once, and you were terrified that if you weren't good enough then they'd leave you in the dust.

Di figured that out before either of the others. She was also the one to discover that you wouldn't take second helpings of food or eat on the road, but you'd accept a refilled bowl if it came from her own. Sign jumped on that locomotive pretty fast too, if you remember correctly. It was easier for you to accept them sharing their food than to worry about taking too much yourself. A cultural thing, you think. Slaves could share food amongst themselves as one of the highest forms of affection possible, because food was all you had to give and sharing meant you went hungry while someone else didn't. Meanwhile, taking more for yourself - you remember asking Rosa for permission every time Sign or Di offered you anything sweet or anything outside an average meal, terrified you were doing something wrong. She always said you could use a little more meat on your bones.

\---

so mister "no really it's okay i don't need a second helping this is more than enough no i've had enough it's enough really" passed out tonight, because he is an idiot. we made camp a few miles before where we intended to stop so that he could rest. he spent the whole time after he woke up mumbling about how he could keep going and it was a fluke and he felt fine and he didn't want to hold us up and he was fine, etc, etc,. rosa made him eat by fixing him with the Mom Stare. sign is, at this very second, letting me use his butt as a writing table while he lays across my lap and bemoans how badly he wants to pap psii.

the paps cannot be stopped! i told him to just ask psii if he'd be interested in that but sign got all weird and "but it's so PALE and i don't even believe in the practical application of the PALE QUADRANT" and then said a lot of other horseshit that would be worthy of writing if it wasn't a blatant cover for nerves. we all know you're shitting diamonds, love. shitting diamonds is less painful if you... shit them... with someone else? i swear this made sense in my head.

it's not like asking could hurt. psii's pretty easy to pity. if someone doesn't pap him out of being so psii-like then i will.

\---

Yeah, that must have been when Sign got in on the food sharing thing. Huh. You didn't know the pale come-ons started so early. You just sort of figured that was part of his perfection-in-troll-form schtik. And Di, you...

You pinch the bridge of your nose, struggling to recall. Di didn't like labels, so you were never officially pale for her. You never called her your moirail, you never pretended your relationship was anything other than quadrant-smearing confusion. Sign was more neatly boxed. Di - you loved her like burning. Most nights after you got the First Ship, you all tucked yourselves into the same 'coon to sleep, her cool skin on one side of you and Sign's warmth on the other.

You would have done anything for them. You would have done _anything_ for them.

\---

okay so tonight i fucked up a little bit because i decided that if sign wasn't going to step up and get his pale affairs in order then i would help nudge things along, so i asked psii if he had feelings for him, except i was way too blunt. i'm not sure if you've gathered this or not, journal, but i am not always the best at gentle conversational nuances. there is a reason sign talks and i write!

anyway. too blunt, so psii thought i was getting possessive and managed to get through a very anxious "i'd never ever try to encroach on already claimed territory i would never i didn't mean to complicate things i promise i won't ever touch him again" and then literally fly away. before i could get a word in edgewise.

oops.

for the record, i did not pick up the book immediately after he left to write it down! i went after him, but it took a while to find him because his scent was hard to track thanks to him LITERALLY FLYING AWAY. why, psii. why.

and then i explained that i don't care who else sign paps or fucks and that he's not my possession and that i'm not his possession and that that's not how love works, all quadrants or not. and also apologized. and i... think i fixed the fuckup? i don't know. it was better to talk it out than not explain because i do not like it when miscommunications make people upset.

now they're in this weird space where they know they're mutually crushing on each other but neither of them will make the first move. i cannot believe this. does it count as auspisticizing if instead of getting black partners to keep their clothes on, you're getting pale partners to pile? i am pretty sure i'm inventing a new quadrant here. the pashen quadrant. all the meddling of pale with all the mediation of ashen. the aesthetic!

\---

Hah. That you remember too. And it's an embarrassing enough memory to make your cheeks warm. You hadn't thought you were still capable of being embarrassed by your past self, but apparently shame has no expiration date.

To be fair, Di's confrontation _was_ very intense and very blunt, and you really did think she was jealous, and part of you was still worried they'd leave you behind if you screwed up. It was a long time before you truly felt like a family member. But still. You didn't need to rocket away.

She found you shaking by the river and things got touchyfeely really fast. You ended up with your head on her shoulder and her fingers in your hair as she told you it was okay, you hadn't done anything wrong, she should have clarified what she meant and she was so so sorry to have scared you, and would you please come back to camp?

That was a turning point. It was easier to relax around all of them when you realized they preferred apologies to anger. You followed her home and watched her like a lovesick barkbeast while you waited for Sign and Rosa to return from town, and when she put her pen aside, you laid down next to her and she petted your hair and you purred for the first time in living memory.

\---

OH MY GOD FINALLY.

\---

That's it. That's the whole entry.

When you flip forward, you discover that every entry past that involves the casual use of the word 'moirail', so that must have been the night you got together. You wish she'd written more, if only because you don't know if your memory of the event matches up to what actually happened.

Rosa had taken the day watch, so she slept most of the early evening. Di left to go hunting even though your game supplies were fine, claiming she was going to package up some meat for the people in the slums. You should have known something was up when she nudged Sign toward you and winked.

He sat down beside you, holding his hands over the dying fire coals, and the first thing out of his mouth was, "I didn't think I believed in the pale quadrant."

You felt the sting even more acutely than when Di confronted you, which was when he continued, "It always seemed like a way of squishing basic decency into one quadrant. Like we aren't allowed to be kind to each other or listen without a romantic entanglement. The idea of pale monogamy has always bothered me."

"You don't need to justify yourself," you told him. "I understand. You can just say you aren't pale for me. I'm not offended."

"No, nonono," he said. "That's exactly the problem. The problem is that I am really, really, _really_ pale for you."

Your ears flattened. "Being pale for me is a problem?"

"No, fuck, I - I'm not explaining this right. I am really pale for you and it's a problem because I don't know how to make a pale relationship work, and the idea of pale monogamy freaks me out, and so does the idea of you getting jealous because I talk to people at sermons, and -"

"But you want to be with me?"

"I. I think so. I just don't know how, I have absolutely zero idea how to negotiate a pale relationship or ensure it's functional for both parties and a lot of the societal values around the quadrant seem to be based on power imbalances and-"

"You moron." You scooted close to him, and you remember - your pusher was strumming so fast that you felt nauseous, and raising your hand to his cheek took more effort than your initial escape. "You should have led with 'I want to be with you.'"

He laughed, shaking his head, letting your fingertips rest on his cheek. "Sorry."

"I don't care if you're pale for other people too. You're pale for Di half the time. You're a little bit pale for like, fucking everyone you meet. You've got a broken pity gland. I know that."

He thumbed a chip in your lower horn. The memory of chirping brings a renewed flush to the tips of your ears. "I love you."

"I l - I love you too. I don't care if you're pale for other people. I just want to matter to you."

You remember - you remember the way he smiled, like you were the most pitiful thing in the world. "How could you _not_ be precious to me, Psii? You don't see your own worth. You risk everything by coming with us when you're smart enough to restart your life far away from danger. You pull people out of fights, you come to every sermon, you've been through so much and you still believe in hope, you're still capable of love. You want good for this world as much as all of us do, even despite everything. How could I ever not love you? How could I ever not want you close?"

"Uh. Maybe because I'm volatile and angry and get headaches and spark and can't regulate my emotions and I hate them, I hate them, all the slavers and masters and every highblood who's ever gained their power through exploitation, I hate them all, I -"

"You're kind and caring and empathetic and you want the best for people," he interrupted. "And you have every right to your anger and every right to your hatred. You've never let them sour you. You take the pain you've experienced and use it to help people instead of harm them. Do you know how much strength that takes?"

That was how it happened. That's how it happened, that memory is real, you choose for that memory to be real. Shame you aren't Psii anymore. Shame you killed Psii and everything Sign liked about you. Shame you're First Imperial Helmsman, destroyer of worlds, genocide after genocide tucked under your belt and traitor after traitor exposed and all glory to the Empire -

Hhhhhah, all right, you're going to spiral if you let that train of thought continue. Things are what they are. You are what you are. No need to crave the approval of a dead man. He died while you slept, and the Empress played the execution for you, and according to your research the footage wasn't doctored. He gave up on this world and damned your species in his dying breath, and if your moirail could lose his faith then you damn well can too.

Your fingers are shaking, so you steady them on the spine of the book before you continue turning pages.

\---

rosa braided my hair again today, which i thought was going to get in the way of hunting, but turned out to be weirdly practical? usually getting leaves and twigs stuck in it is a good way of Blending With Nature, but not getting tangled in branches is also helpful. i brought down half a herd of antlerbeast. wrestled two, shot another four down with arrows, which is way more meat than we know what to do with! we've been packaging it up to give to people in need, or to cook and keep at the sermons.

sign's starting to become a bit of a legend. it's a good thing sometimes, not so good other times. he's trying so hard to spread peace and love. the highbloods are starting to take notice, but most of them... actually aren't too hostile? not until he starts preaching real heresy, anyway. it's not love that gets under their skin. they like the concept. it's being told they'd have to give up ritualized violence and have to, like, actively examine their own actions. people do not like having to lift fingers!

psii keeps telling highblood jokes, which is not helping things but is making me laugh my ass off. 

what's the difference between a seadweller and a yellowblood?

the yellowblood doesn't need an entourage of servants to get dressed in the evening!

a blueblood and a brownblood walk into a tavern. the blueblood makes a big show of how wealthy he is and asks the barkeep for the best stuff in the house. the barkeep pours him a drink and charges him an exorbitant amount. "i'll have what he's having," the brownblood says.   
the blueblood smirks. "you could never afford this."   
the brownblood smiles. "sure i can. i'll have exactly what he's having."   
"how could you possibly afford this?" the blueblood splutters.   
the barkeep pours the brownblood a drink, winking as he charges a much lower price.   
"because, moron," the brownblood says, "i drink here all the time, and i'm smart enough to notice there's only one fucking keg."

psii claims that one CAN be told with less profanity, but lack of profanity diminishes the effect. rosa said something about washing his mouth out with soap, but she was laughing behind her hands.

\---

Huh. You don't remember those jokes at all. You believe you told them, but you can't quite conceptualize ever doing so. Your sense of humor has gotten shittier over the sweeps. Or maybe better. Everything you read about Psii that you can't directly connect to a memory feels like... someone other than you, someone separated from this mind and this life and this history. Idiot who thought he could change this world. Idiot who put all his faith in three of the most vulnerable people on Alternia, idiot who pretended things wouldn't end exactly as they did. Pre-Empress you is not you. She destroyed everything you were, or you destroyed yourself, because you bear at least partial responsibility for the ways you fell.

You could still be strong, if you really wanted to. You could pick yourself up and invest your heart and soul in this world. You could believe again. You could help people, you could help the new Empress, you could live for Sign and Di's memories and pretend your hands are theirs, pretend they're guiding you.

You could be strong if you wanted to. You've chosen to be a bitter coward instead. This world is your fault, and you're choosing not to take responsibility. These people are your people, and you're choosing to shut yourself as far away from them as you can. All your choice. The circumstances that led you here were not in your control, but these decisions are.

No one should care about you, not as you are. You deserve every shitty thing that's happened to you and you deserve every shitty thing that's going to happen to you and avoiding it is just selfishness, cowardly selfishness.

You flip a few more pages.

\---

tonight i flew!

well, technically psii flew and carried me, but still. the people in this town have been so welcoming - we had a party in the square to celebrate that gang of terrorizing tealbloods getting run out. there was music and dancing and laughter and we brought all the food we could find, which was a lot. people who normally wouldn't come out decided to come for a free meal, and even though there were so many there wasn't any violence. just singing and staying close.

sign and i danced together for a long time. it's been a while since i've seen him look that happy. he holds back and tries to keep himself together and lead by example, and he's so good at it, but it was also so nice to see him let go a little. he smiled all night and we might have been a liiiittle drunk, but that just made the world spin better. rosa disappeared with a pretty oliveblood lady and has yet to return, but she'll be back before the sun goes down. daywalkers and all!

i lost track of psii and i was a little tipsy by the time he LITERALLY DESCENDED OUT OF THE SKY and snagged me around the waist. he said he couldn't hold me and sign at the same time and then we went rocketing up into the air, and i would have been scared but i could feel my whole body cocooned in his psionics, the whole world spinning out under my feet. do you know how far you can see from that height? miles and miles and miles, like when you perch on top of a mountain and squint. the whole layout of the town, all the lights in the square, all the dimmer lights in people's hives, the fields outside and the forests on the edges - i felt like i could see the entire planet beneath me. it was freezing up there, but psii kept a hold of me and i felt... i felt invincible.

he brought me back down when my teeth started chattering. then he grabbed sign and disappeared with him too. i don't know what all happened with them because sign passed out pretty much as soon as we got back to the tent. i'll ask him later. psii fell asleep too. i put some of his migraine pills and a glass of water by his head because i'm pretty sure he overdid it.

i'm mostly sober now but i still want to sleep. good morning - write later!

\---

That you remember. You turned that night over and over in your head when you were at the helm, searing it into your pan so you wouldn't lose it. You didn't know how to dance, but you sure as hell could fly, and you were a gathering thunderstorm as you hung in the sky. Di screamed with laughter when you spun her around and around underneath the stars, clinging to your shoulders. She kissed you a few times, but kisses to Di were like affectionate nudges to anyone else, so it wasn't some grand romantic gesture. You wouldn't have minded even if it was. You could have kept her close forever.

Sign was quieter than her, his gaze focused down at all the people below you, still dancing and laughing and eating. You remember his smile, less pitiful and more a warm glow, unbridled joy only slightly reined in by his drunkenness. 

He brushed his hands over your face, your horns, your ears and neck and shoulders. "This is how things are meant to be," he told you, kissing your cheek. "See, this is what I've been telling you. This is what I've seen, what I remember, my visions - this is what I know. This is how things were. Everything's all right, everything's going to be okay, don't you see?" and like an idiot, you believed him.

You believed him. You didn't stop believing him until the war, when all of your respective faiths began to slip. At the time, not believing in his world of peace was the worst heresy you could imagine, but hah. You hadn't met the Empress yet.

"It's all right," he told you long after his death, as you funneled psionic energy into the core of a planet to destroy it from the inside out. His fingertips rubbed gentle circles on your temples to soothe the pain from the screaming terror of the indigenous species. "It's all right. They would have wiped themselves out eventually. It's quick like this, you see? And don't you want to be important?"

That wasn't him, not the real him, and you knew it. That was the programmed reward version of him. The real Signless would have screamed and howled and wept over the injustice of it all. The real Signless would have torn you out of the wires with his bare hands and breathed life back into you through sheer spite.

"It's better to catch them now," Di told you, curled up at the base of the column and purring as you gutted a network of traitors. As you sent drones down on their hives and hiding places to smoke them out, leaving broken bodies in the rubble. "The more people they infect with their bullshit, the worse the consequences will be. Quick deaths, and the rest of the world undisturbed. We learned from experience, didn't we?"

Not real, not real, not real. If Sign's rage cooled like the irons and he remembered what he cared about, if Di held onto faith and hope and love long enough to keep his memory alive, if Rosa kept his symbol strung below her dress and never forgave but never forgot -

Your descendant's face springs into your mind. Your eyes, your horns, your overbite, your cynicism. About the age you were when you first followed Sign. Full of the same hope mixed with defeatism and stupid, stupid, stupid ideals.

If there is an afterlife and you meet your family again, they are never going to forgive you your sins. Even the most loving people have their limits. And some crimes are truly unforgivable, even to saviors of trollkind.

Your best hope, you think, is that they ceased to exist with their final breaths. That they have no idea what you've become and death is more peaceful than life.

There's a knock on your door. You debate ignoring it, then sigh and close the book. Best to deal with whoever it is now.

You crack the paneling and eye the Second Signless. Never mind, you're pretty sure you're too tired to deal with this.

"You want to stay because everything left of your family is here," he says without preamble, because you guess he finally caught up. "That's a good reason. You should tell Feferi that."

You shut the door.


End file.
